The present invention relates generally to a method and apparatus for presenting Internet data in a format meaningful to management and business operation.
With the development in information technology and networking infrastructure, more and more business transactions are being conducted electronically over the Internet. Using the Internet to conduct business transactions are now getting so popular that it is currently well know as electronic commerce (or Internet commerce) by the industries and public. It is fair to predict that electronic commerce is having an enormous impact on the way businesses will be conducted and managed in the future. Thus, there is a great interest in studying and understanding consumers' behavior and decision process in electronic commerce environment.
Traditionally, business transactions have been conducted at business premises, and there exist methods and techniques to study consumers behavior and decision process for traditional business environment. For example, a retailer can display its goods in store shelves arranged in accordance with the changes of the four seasons. By observing consumers' reactions to the arrangement, the retailer can adjust the layout of the shelves to facilitate sales of its goods.
In electronic commerce environment, a retailer or service provider typically displays information about its goods or services in a web site (which includes at least one server) via the Internet. Specifically, the server for the web site stores the information in a set of web page files, such as HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) files. In addition to containing text content, an HTML file may also contain links to other type files, such as graphic or audio files, for displaying pictures and icons and playing audio message. An HTML file may also contain links to other web page files. The other type files can be also stored on the server. By using his/her web browser, a customer (or a potential customer) can remotely navigate through the web site, gaining the information about the goods and services, or ordering selected goods or services. Unfortunately, unlike in traditional business environment, there is no reliable method in electronic commerce environment at the present time to measure the effectiveness of the layout of a web site. This is due to the difficulties in observing consumers' behavior and analyzing consumers' decision process over the Internet.
Historically, the Internet was designed as an open structure in which the main purpose is to exchange information freely without restriction. To obtain a web page file (such as an HTML file) from a web site, a web browser first sends a request to the server for that web site. Upon receiving the request, the server retrieves the HTML file requested and send it to the web browser. Upon receiving the HTML file, the web browser displays the HTML file as a web page. If the HTML file also contains links to other type files (such as graphic or audio files), the browser subsequently sends requests to the server for these files. Upon receiving the requests, the server retrievers these files and send them to the web browser. Upon receiving theses files, the browser displays pictures and icons on the web page, or executes an application to play audio files embedded in the web page. If the HTML file also contains a link to another HTML file, upon clicking (or activating) the link, the browser sends a further request to the server for the HTML file. Upon receiving the further request, the server retrievers the HTML files and sends it to the web browser. It should be noticed that browsers interact with web sites in a stateless fashion. On the Internet, a particular web site can be accessed by thousands of browsers in a random fashion. While a browser is sending a sequence of requests to a web site, it does not maintain a constant connection to that web site between any two consecutive requests. To a server, it has no control over the sequences of requests; a subsequent request may not have any logical relationship with the previous one; a sequence of requests may come from different web browsers; a request may be generated from a link embedded in an HTML file. Consequently, it is difficult to consecutively observe customers' activities and behavior in electronic commerce environment over the Internet.
Current technology provides mechanisms to record access status data (or Internet data) for web page and other type files while a sequence of requests are being received and processed by a server. However, the Internet data are kept as a set of separate and non-correlated data records that are chronologically arranged according to the times at which the requests were received and processed. Consequently, Internet data, without further processing, are not meaningful to management and business operation. In addition, since Internet data are recorded mainly for the purpose of administrating web sites, they may contain redundant and erroneous data that have no use to management and business operation analysis. When Internet data are further processed by other applications (such as by data warehouse applications), these redundant and erroneous data are undesirable because they wastefully occupy storage space and may cause errors in reports or during analysis.
Moreover, Internet data may be generated by different types of servers that may use different formats to record the Internet data. In another words, Internet data generated by different types of servers are not compatible in format. This causes further problem to utilize Internet data.
Therefore, there is a need for a method and apparatus to present Internet data in a format that is meaningful to management and business operation.
There is another need for a method and apparatus to present Internet data in a format that can be further efficiently utilized.
There is yet another need for a method and apparatus to filter Internet data to facilitate further analyzing process.
There is still another need for a method and apparatus to combine Internet data from multiple servers, possibly from different types of servers, into a coherent format.
The present invention meets these needs.